


What Could Have Been

by IrreWilderer



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Fluffy, angsty, daddy solas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-19
Updated: 2015-11-19
Packaged: 2018-05-02 08:35:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5241758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IrreWilderer/pseuds/IrreWilderer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A prompt fill. Tiny drabble about Solas and his new born daughter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Could Have Been

_What could have been was the scent of honeysuckle and elfroot as it saw the salt of sweat cleansed away. White cotton covered the bed, white cambric clothed Ma'ven, and white cretonne came down about the windows, waving in the wind. All of it called to mind the image of clouds, because what could have been was heavens-sent._

The child’s head was held in his right hand and her body in his left. Solas saw some hints of his mother in her. She had a stare that stole away the loneliness and a gaze that left the golden things. The babe’s brow was above and beyond expression: clear in clarity, clean of doubt, caught in an endless pique of grace.

Solas recognized her crystalline eyes of silver and remembered his mother’s songs: warm and wordless like sun beams, and made in murmurs so soft that the syllables became lost. Words, of course, only hindered the hymn with the weight of definitions. This lullaby was a feat of feeling, not an effort of fickle talk, and never before had it been heard in such harmonies as Solas hummed it soothingly.

What could have been _had_ once been. These childhood songs had once been comforting,  spinning darkness into light. And now they cracked and burst to pieces as Solas broke and started sobbing.

“Solas…”

His back had bent to aching with duty for an age. Now it curved down to his daughter as he cradled her close, shoulders hunched forward, the strain so beautiful. She was singular and clear: clearer than anything he had ever known, and then she blurred from beyond his tears. She was every bit their stinging heat, and the burn was more than sweet.

“Solas, sit, please. Take a breath.”

He cried ugly. His teeth were bared and gritted like a beast’s. He choked and heaved from breathlessness. And Solas’s new-born daughter absolved him with a baby’s gurgle.

Ma'ven’s hand slid over his knee, then smoothed down his leg. She was the embodiment of strength and stability, though still weakened from delivery. Solas was the only one to cry for once, and for that he was thankful.

“What are we going to name her?” Ma'ven asked from her pillows of silken samite.

He thought of titles which would foretell her generosity and foreshadow her intelligence. Ancient constellations came to mind, but the stars dulled to black beside his daughter. Solas turned to blooms, but they wilted in her wake. No figure in history was a suitable namesake, because no one born before her had been so defined by perfection.

Solas tried to weave a name from poetry, but all he could whisper in a voice raw from emotion was “Emma.”

“You know she’s mine too, Solas,” Ma'ven retorted in a forgiving, loving laugh.

He would hardly hear his name on her lips in the future. Babae, baba, ba-ah-ah as he tickled his daughter and she giggled. Solas’s name on Ma'ven’s lips alone was more than enough, and he knew that.

Solas gave his daughter up to Ma'ven’s embrace, for what other gift was his wife deserving of? Then he sat on the bed beside her, let her lean into his chest, while his lips lingered on her brow, crowning her in thankfulness.

“Ma serannas.” Solas’s voice deepened to the depths of his gratitude while Ma’ven kissed him on the chin. “Ara nehn.”

_What could have been was them crying together, instead of Solas crying alone._

**Author's Note:**

> ara - my (closer to ‘i am’ than emma 'mine’, I like to think)
> 
> nehn - great happiness, so happy.
> 
> He’s saying he is both very happy, and that Ma'ven is his happiness. I guess. I don’t get DA elvish.


End file.
